The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

4-card crossfire is already doable if you have the slots, but the ATX size specification of motherboards means that unless you use single slot cards, there's no room to do it. Not surprising your PSU is making noises, it's much too weak for your system.

 

I couldn't do it on my board with 4670's and that's suppose to be single slot. One of the only cards I've seen it done with is the 2600 as per this article from 2007 showing just how old my £100ish K9A2 platnium is: http://www.dvhardware.net/article22788.html

 

You can do it with 4670s - but they have to have genuine single-slot coolers, not all of them are. The K9A2 Platinum is fully space, so you can do that even with dual-slot cards, e.g. four 4890s.
6-slot boards like the P6T6 can run quad crossfire, but some slots can only fit single slot cards, e.g. 4850s.

 

most newer cases come with 8 pcie slots at the back, so even if the dual card slot goes over the bottom of the mobo its supported.

 

as long as your case doesn't interfere. Additionally, most boards don't run 16x in the very top slot.

 

LOL

Yeah you're right.

I got the Dell 30" - $850 - that was my BIG upgrade in 2009. Then I got the spedo case to force myself to do the new build - then I charged through my last sales check picking up laptops, in an unbelievable amount of time, and no longer had the money for the new build. Hahaha.

Minor correction - actually the 670 is 115 watts, not 140, but the arctic freezer 7 pro will cool the beejeezus out of it - yeah Jeff, you're right, I'm on an after-market cooling frenzy - because of you.

Sam - it's all Jeff's fault, I swear. You're right, there is no way this makes any sense - except the only way I am looking at it - the last fling for my hobby gaming machine that I have modded to death - with very trick ventilation that I am truly proud of. And finally, after-market coolers. I am learning stuff that will pay off. And the only thing I'm thinking of for now is getting a slightly smoother gaming experience on Left 4 Dead, and maybe Left 4 Dead 2, until early next year when I should be able to finally start the new build.

By the way, I have dropped the fsb back to 200 from 210. Little buggy things were happening, like trying to log into my user on the xp welcome screen, and having no password box open up. Never ever happened before on four computers running xp for over 5 years. (When they say you can't overclock a p4, they mean it, haha.) The 3.8 will give me a 20% speed boost, plus double L2 cache, and with the arctic on it, I might try one more time to go to 206 fsb, and then maybe to 210, and just see what happens.

What cpu test should I be running that will stress the cpu and log errors? Similarly, what mem test should I be running? Similarly what graphics card test will do the same thing?

If they're discontinuing the 4870x2 - what about a 4890x2. Or are they getting ready for the 5000 family?

That's the exact reason I traded in the antec 900 for the spedo over at microcenter - the antec had only 7 slots, spedo has 8.

I am surprised, sam, that you're "recommending" an amd board for quad cf with that K9A2 Platinum. Would quad cf be a reason to get the Phenom II and that motherboard? Four 4890s would be pretty strong, right?

 

I'm sorry but 4x 4890's with reference heatsinks would simply die from overheating:
Red blocks standard size 4890's
In the original image 1cm is 20 pixels (I think) the image below is shrunk to 456x600

My 4850 touches the heatpipe and you need to take the card out to swap RAM. The southbridge is flat enough to not interfere with the 4890's.

 

Ultimately, there is no magic bullet for stability, all you can really do is use the PC, and if it crashes, it's not stable. Your motherboard is probably too old to be overclocking the FSB much.
There won't ever be a 4890X2, as the amount of heat and power required is too great for one card. I'm not recommending an AMD board, the K9A2 is old and doesn't work with many good AMD processors, I'm simply stating it as a rare example.
Keith: They'd work, you'd just have to up the fan speed, but more importantly, have a strong side fan. You'd be amazed how effective they are in such examples, they can knock up to 40ºC off temps. However, as said, you're limited to three cards with the majority of systems. Who knows I may make my next upgrade a trio of single 5870s - they're easier to cool that way

 

Actually rather impossibly the K9A2 is AM3 ready and has support for even the very newest Phenom II X4's, The Athlon II X4's and pretty much every other AMD chip: http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=prodcpu2&prod_no=1332&maincat_no=1

 

True, but it does require a BIOS update, and possibly an older chip to run the flash from.

 

My 6000+ required V14 and I simply plopped that in and was away. But obviously that's still 4 versions away from the newest.

 

Yeah, the AM3 CPUs require 18.

 

interesting:

vista/win7 64
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/9-8_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_wdm_enu.exe

xp 32
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/9-8_xp32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu.exe

 

Yeah, interestingly the optimisations only apply to AMD CPUs. Also, way to break the page margins...

 

Shaff, you need to fix your post.

 

fixed my post.

have you tried the 9.8s sam?

also intresting everywhere the guns are firing for 10th of sept for the new 5 series.

so the 4870x2 being EOL once month before.... sounds right

hopefully itll push the price of a 1gb 4890/4870 to miniscule levels, for a modernwarfare upgrade for me, for some crossfire action

or screw that and get a nice indlix crucial 128GB ssd?

 

I haven't heard that early from anyone official yet, but if so... score!
You don't want an Indilinx SSD, you want an Intel one.
I was considering looking at maybe three solo 5870s for next gen next year, depending on what the dual cards are like.

edit: just seen it's breaking news. September 10th eh? Intriguing!

 

the intels are too expensive and from what i see for everyday use there isnt much difference. a few seconds to boot vista/games, thats all.

£200 for the 128GB crucial indlix is a good price, i just hope they drop to near £128 in oct/november

 

Ain't gonna happen, for near double the performance in a fair few situations, £170 for 80GB ain't so bad.
Anyway, the new HD5870 announcment is very exciting news. On paper the specifications looked amazing. Obviously paper specs don't tell the whole story, but if they're even close to the truth the HD5870 solo could give the HD4870X2 a run for its money.

 

real life situations?